Abstract

The study of physiological mechanism has important practical significance to promote teaching improvement and enhance teaching timeliness. In the usage of young children teaching methods to promote mental development, teachers should deeply analyse and research combined with the characteristics of physiological development of children, properly handle the relationships between physiological mechanism and teaching and launch a pertinence teaching, so as to open the door to wisdom for young children teaching. This paper starts from the research of physiological mechanism of children, then mainly discusses the relationship between their physiological mechanism and teaching, and finally puts forward some constructive suggestions on the existing problems in young children teaching. The outcome of the proposed technique was well received by children.

Keywords

Young children teaching, Mental development.

Introduction

Based on all kinds of disputes between genetic and
environmental determinism, Piaget had developed the theory of
cognitive development, and attributed various factors which
influences the physical and mental development of children to
maturity, experience, social environment and balance. The
mature factors include the development of physiological and
psychological function, which is a necessary condition for
children to accept knowledge. With the further development of
European capitalist relations of production, positive science
becomes the mainstream research direction instead of the
original philosophical ontology, which provides the theoretical
basis for this study from a biological perspective. Meanwhile,
many achievements of empirical studies also constitute the
case support of this study. The clarification of relationship
among physiological mechanism of children, cognition and
teaching is very crucial to grasp the cognitive law and to
improve the quality of young children teaching.

An Overview of Physiological Mechanism of
Children

Early childhood is a critical period of human development [1].
According to the analysis of the life story and famous works of
Leonardo Da Vinci including ‘Mona Lisa’ and ‘Saint Anne,
Lady and Child’, Freud came up with the conclusion that
incidental factors in early childhood determined his life, and
repeatedly mentioned that the clear importance of early
childhood could not be doubted again [2]. There should be
noticeable changes in both body type and posture at this stage.
As the earliest organs in the development, the brain and nervous system play important roles in individual behavior and
psychological development, and also in transferring
information to other body organs, whose development is
closely related to the improvement of the brain cells. Synapses
are organisms distributed in the brain cell surface, which will
be discussed in detail in the sections below, not be repeated
here. The period of synaptic growth in different brain regions
is not the same. That is to say, the sensory cortex synapse early
begins to grow, while the prefrontal cortex of brain cells
develops later. Hence, it starts growing slowly pass by
continuous perfection of sensory cortex cells. Generally, it will
be basically perfected until sixteen years old or so. The
prefrontal cortex is strongly linked with associative memory
and long-term memory. The changes of brain areas movement
were investigated by the release of amino acids with electron
scanning. Some researchers observed that there were amazing
activities of the prefrontal cortex of the tested people when
making them remind of a related word with a prompted word
through a card. The prefrontal impacts on personal behavior
are mainly labeled as processing and coordinating information,
which will result in planned behavior, and controlling cognitive
behavior from the meta-cognitive level. Additionally, thinking
and emotional system change with the variation of height and
weight of children at the same time. According to early
childhood physiology and psychology studies, children over
the age of one-year-old can imitate adults consciously,
including language and related behaviors. Besides, this trend
becomes more obvious with small growth of age, but still in
the primary mechanical cognitive processing. The brain weight
has already reached 90 percent of its full size by the time a
person is six, with the basic ability to recognize and deal with specific matters. Meanwhile, 6-year-old children can produce
emotional resonance and long-term memory in response to
external stimuli, with well-developed nervous system.

The Influence of Physiological Mechanism of on
Teaching

The growth and development of the brain is the
premise of teaching

Teaching and learning are two processes occurring in
classroom teaching. Students are the main body of classroom
activities. Pedagogy believes that teachers in the education
activities should pay attention not only to renew teaching
methods, but also to bring their initiative into full play. In this
article, it refers to the readiness for learning by the
improvement of the main physiological mechanism. According
to the meaningful learning theory of Ausubal, the learning
mind and knowledge background of students are equally
important to promote the completion of learning behavior,
which come to this conclusion based on the static perspective.
However, from the development angle that is the view of
individual physiological mechanism, the teaching should
follow individual physical and mental development. The brain
is the material basis of cognition, whose function cannot
develop well without the interaction between the individual
and the external environment. In other words, if lacking of
necessary external stimuli, the brain cannot complete the
normal growth. The brain institute of Chinese Academy of
Sciences has investigated this problem by means of
experiment. In their experiment, new-born mice were placed in
three different design environments. The beards of one group
of mice were pulled out to lose tactile sense, another group was
placed in a dark environment to lose sight, and a third group
experienced in simulated natural environment to receive multimodal
sensory stimulation [3]. The results showed that the
cerebral cortex of the first two groups of mice have no
development, hindering the development of other parts
simultaneously. In contrast, the sensory cortex of the third
group of mice obtained good development by sensory
stimulation. The brain neurons are the basic conditions for
students to acquire knowledge to complete the development of
intelligence. In other words, the acquisition of knowledge is
directly related to brain plasticity. As early as before birth,
nerve cells have gradually achieved growth and development,
then underwent two rapid developments in the 3 months after
fetal growth and birth, finally stopped growing around 2 years
of age basically. The interaction of environment on the brain
cells continue to change the form of relevant functional
organizations, which is determined by the plasticity of brain
cells. Moreover, it is also the mechanism of human brain to
store declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge and
strategic knowledge.

Although there is little difference between the number of
human perception and emotional system, the action
mechanisms of these systems are not also decided by
individual differences of genetic factors. Personal experiences
of external stimuli and life situation determine the quality and
the way of their experience. The brain makes corresponding
changes according to a certain stimulus; as a result every brain
development is diverse from each other. Even at the same age
stage, children also have various intellectual development
levels. In order to avoid affecting the intelligence development
of children, proper arrangements should be made fully in
accordance with the principle of the recent development of the
brain area, when working out teaching plans and related
teaching methods in early childhood, a crucial time in the brain
development of a child. Physical development of every child
should be took care of as much as possible in teaching, with
advanced teaching techniques and means to help improve their
intelligence. As a complete system, the overall function of
physiology is influenced by the growth rhythm and various
components. Therefore, we should consider the development
of the function of each component in the development of
teaching system, and coordinate their balanced development
and priority development.

Teaching in the Horizon of Physiological
Mechanism

Teaching should respect physiological law

Sound physical function is an important foundation for
teaching to be effective. The development law of physiological
mechanism can direct teaching practice. In view of the idea of
humanism, all the starting point and destination of teaching
should be toward to the people in reality, with the purpose of
promoting the full development of human beings. In the final
analysis, the respect for human learning rules is to properly
handle the relationship between physiological mechanisms and
learning in teaching [4]. That is, we should make reasonable
teaching objectives, methods and strategies, never too soon or
too lower the difficulty of teaching, in line with the principle of
moderation and children's growth and development, to avoid
the overlook of learning. Yet in traditional young children
teaching, overemphasized classroom teaching would make
children early contact with difficult knowledge learning,
contrary to the lively nature, and ultimately inhibit the
excitability of cerebral cortex, rejecting to learn. The teaching
methods and means of kindergarten teachers often disconnect
with practical needs, lacking of theoretical research and the
respect for physiological mechanism. While respecting the
physiological mechanism of children and establishing
coincident teaching system can get twice the result with half
the effort.

Teaching is to mobilize the physiological mechanism
to play the process

Biological experiments show that the number of brain cells of
three-year-old children can reach hundreds of billions, close to
adult levels, with well-developed synapses and infinite
plasticity. Additionally, the cortex tissue hidden underneath the
surface of the brain has a thickness of 2 mm, all over the nerve
cells. Through observation, a single nerve cells stretch several
tens of thousands of tentacles composed of dendrites and axons
from the inside out, and the transmission of information to the
synaptic is in a meaningful and planned way in teaching [5] as
shown in Figure 1. What is more, the speed of information
exchange between the cells through the synaptic can be nearly
100 meters per second based on the analysis of measuring data,
thus forming a huge information transmission system. Besides,
the information storage capacity of brain is also unusually
large, which can reach almost a thousand units of information
per second. Even in infancy, the functionality of brain
development is beyond imagination. High-quality teaching can
maximize the mobilization of brain function, fulfil personal
potential, and improve intelligence as well.

Figure 1: Diagram of synaptic.

Teaching for the creation of physiological mechanisms
to create space

Scientific research confirmed that the correct environmental
stimuli are of positive relevance with physiological
mechanisms. High-quality teaching can provide a "suitable"
environment for brain development, and promote its
development, while produce obstacles in opposite. Aiming at
the characteristics of physiological mechanism in different
periods, it can effectively promote the organic changes of
cerebral cortex and neuron synapse, and improve the brain
development simultaneously, benefited from providing some
beneficial experiences for children through certain teaching
methods and ways. Young children teaching is more dependent
on the play of teaching situation, whose understanding of
knowledge is limited to direct experience. The creation of
teaching situations can not only powerfully enhance sensory
experience including perception, audition and touch, access to intuitive teaching content, but also effectively enhance the
excitability of the cerebral cortex, to obtain a pleasant learning
experience. In carrying out teaching process, the mutual
coordination of various physiological mechanisms should be
paid attention to, such as the direct correlation between
emotions and thinking, that is different emotions of children
will have an impact on teaching even in the same teaching
environment. More specifically, stress, anxiety and burnout
have negative impacts, while happiness, comfort, challenges
and other factors help to obtain a positive attitude. In a word,
positive emotions can effectively improve the flexibility of
thinking and shorten the time required for information
processing. On the contrary, negative attitudes often inhibit to
play the function of the brain normally.

Construction of Young Children Teaching
Practice on the Basis of Biology

Creating appropriate teaching environment

"Studies of gifted children have shown that intelligence was
not inherited like redheads and blue eyes. Our intelligence
seems to have been determined by the quality of the
environment before and after birth. All gifted children almost
grew up in the environment of rich and colorful." said Peter
Russell, a scientist who works on brain research [6]. More or
less, the importance of shaping environment is told in this
view, although absolutizing the role of environment. Above all,
it is extremely important to create an appropriate teaching
environment for young children. Galloway et al. and Mercer
proposed techniques to improve teaching and retention among
children [7,8].

Create positive activities with a variety of sensory
stimulation

Perception of the world of the children more depends on the
systematic and combined action of various senses, whose
abstract thinking has not yet developed. The relevant studies
have shown that the full use of multiple sensory functions
could effectively enhance the learning efficiency, making
external stimuli play a balanced role in the entire sensory
system. The feelings of a child about the same external stimuli
vary from person to person in teaching, as well as experience
mode, so teaching should be presented in a variety of ways as
much as possible [9].

Face the educational value of "environment"

Designers give more consideration to obvious factors such as
light, temperature and noise in the design of the education
environment, without the support of physiological mechanism.
However, the effects of environment on human brain function
determine its recessive function. It is of great significance to
promote learning by embedding education-related elements in
the environment, achieving communication with the brain,
strengthening and enriching children's emotional experience,
and contributing to the slow and lasting function of education.

Based on the physiology research in environmental education
value, the differences of early childhood brain development are
mostly derived from the proportion of educational components
in environmental design and whether full participation in
teaching. But in reality, young children teaching often comes
into the crisis of theory divorced from practice, due to the lack
of meaningful teaching design in life space. In addition, it
should be recognized that the environment is neither static nor
absolute. In accordance with different teaching requirements,
educators should make real-time adjustment of relevant
environment elements, including items, equipment and
appliances, to give the connotation of a vivid scene as shown in Figure 2.

As studies have proven that the hippocampus located in the
brain edge will slow down or stop the transmission of
information to other brain tissue when children face adverse
situations, such as threat or significant pressure, lead brain
function to be affected and inefficient. As a brain tissue closely
related to young children learning, the hippocampus connects
short-term memory with long-term memory. Long-term
inhibition of the normal operation of the hippocampus would
greatly weaken the learning ability of children and even make
it into emotional disorders or affect brain development.
Learning psychology holds that a moderate tension is
conducive to improve learning efficiency for learners. The
purpose of the so-called moderate tension is not to make
learners into excessive stress and panic, but to obtain a certain
degree of challenge. On the one hand, it is beneficial to
activate the learning motivation, and to promote solving
problems and playing creativity. On the other hand, the
improvement of learning alertness could make students
complete learning tasks more seriously.

Conduct situational teaching

The brain has been well developed in early childhood, with the
learning conditions thanks to the synapses and activities speed
of brain cells. Teaching organizers need to design classroom
knowledge system in accordance with children's cognitive
laws, due to the difference between children's sensory
cognitive ways and adults' learning styles. Situational teaching
may be better to take young children teaching activities, no
matter from sensory experience or cognition.

Theme-based model

Theme-based teaching is a teaching model with independent
knowledge unit, which is carried out follow certain logical
organization order and relevant teaching methods, on the basis
of young children knowledge category and cognitive laws.
Based on the interconnected independent subject, the model
makes the teaching contents have direct sensuality, which is of
great practical significance for improving the interestingness of
teaching task and attracting children's attention. According to
cognitive learning theory by Ausubel mentioned above, one of
the conditions for meaningful learning is the experience to
assimilate new knowledge. The maximum development and
use of the brain, not only lies in learning new knowledge, but
giving more consideration to the connection of knowledge in
mind and the formation of the system, that is the meaning of
theme-based teaching.

Typical cases and analysis of theme-based model

As shown in Figure 3, a classic case of young children teaching
that with a theme of "fruit and vegetables" is derived to make a
brief introduction, for a more intuitive understanding of the
theme-based model. By the fusion of different educational
context, theme-based teaching tries to expand children's
exposure to external stimuli through all kinds of methods, to
enable various events to induce brain function to promote
information transmission from outside to inside. Educators
should guarantee the quantity and quality of teaching situation
in different forms in the design of the theme curriculum, then
present wonderful and rich teaching content, to ensure
children's meaningful extraction of processing knowledge and
experience [10]. So besides focusing on the relevance between
knowledge in the theme teaching activities, we will also need
to understand the inherent experience of children fully, and to
activate the fun of the teaching task of new knowledge, then to
mobilize the learning motivation of young children, and finally
to combine subjective motive with correlation for more
conductive to memorization.

Figure 3: The teaching case diagram of "vegetable and fruit".

Early childhood is the critical period of human growth and
development, which is essential to the perfect and development
of future physiological function. As a prerequisite for the
follow-up education and teaching, correct guidance for
children's intellectual development can not only help to realize
individual self-worth, but also to lay the foundation for the realization of social value of the individual, including that
children's early experience may indirectly affect the
development of all mankind [11]. In this work two general
works from literature were taken [12,13] and case diagram
were constructed.

Conclusion

As a planned, organized educational activities, teaching should
fully respect the law of teaching and be persuasive, to promote
the all-round development of young children. From the
perspective of biology, this paper reflects on the main problems
in young children teaching, which is beneficial to solve some
fundamental problems in the field of early childhood education
from the mechanism level. Moreover, it also provides
beneficial references for the application of multi-discipline
research results in teaching, which has a vast research value in
the future. The teaching practice strategy proposed in this
paper is based on the theoretical research on the relationship
between physiological mechanism and teaching, which is of
great reference value to the young children teaching reform in
the future.

References

Allison Gobonia Scientists in the cradle, mind, brain and children learning. East China Normal University Press 2004; 124.

Che WB. Leonardo Da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood (The Selected Works of Sigmund Freud). Changchun Publ H 2012; 120.